The Menagerie: The Cottontail Tale
by Twinings
Summary: This was the beginning of the end...[CAT]


_Disclaimer: I don't own this DC 'verse. That's why we call it fan fiction._

_I do, however, own part of the CATverse. View the timeline if you dare at www. freewebs. com/ bitemetechie/ catverse. html or do the math yourself--this follows "Interview Skills."_

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Part 1 – The Cottontail Tale 

The time was 7:45 PM. The date, October 3. The location, a warehouse belonging to a certain prominent businessman in Gotham City. This particular warehouse was often used after-hours as a meeting place for everything from marriage negotiations to drug deals, and everything in between.

Tonight, it was being used for something the family who owned it would not have approved of at all.

At the very least, it was clear that the younger son of the family's head was not enjoying the current negotiations, if that was what they could be termed.

At the moment, he was begging for his life. And the three women on whose mercy he had tried to throw himself were laughing like children at Christmastime.

And Jonathan Crane was watching it all with a slight feeling of unease.

True, the boy had gotten in their way. He had ruined a perfectly good heist, not even on purpose, and he had insulted them all with the arrogance that only a spoiled college kid could display. He was a frat boy, a breed for which Crane had never had much respect, but he didn't quite understand what the girls meant when they spoke of the "frat boy tradition."

Or at least, he hadn't until they started _flaying_ him.

Crane hated to admit than anything they did made him uncomfortable, but…well, a scream of pain wasn't the same thing as a scream of fear. And pain wasn't nearly as sustainable as a nice state of terror.

Oh, it wasn't the blood that was bothering him, though. It wasn't even the looks of savage delight on their faces, or the way they kept giggling like…_cheerleaders_.

What bothered him (he told himself) was the fact that they didn't seem to _care_. They were giving no thought to keeping their victim quiet, to hiding the evidence, to _any_ of the consequences of their actions.

And when _he_ was the one worried about the consequences, he knew something had to be wrong.

When clearing his throat and pointedly staring at his watch did nothing to hurry them up, he gave up and stalked outside.

"Whenever you're ready?" he called back to them. Al waved him on his way.

He waited in the van.

And waited. And waited.

What was _wrong_ with them? He didn't expect sanity out of them, or good sense, or even good manners. But they had started off with some sense of self-preservation. When had they lost sight of that, and why?

He didn't really care, of course, if they wanted to get themselves caught and hauled off to Arkham. But he didn't care to be dragged down with them.

He would have leaned on the horn if he hadn't been worried about the possibility of being caught in the area. He almost did anyway, they took so long to come out and join him. He really should have just left them, instead of hanging around and then making room for a heavily blood-soaked Techie on the seat next to him, with Al and the Captain in front.

"_Now_ are you ready to go?" he demanded, showing as much restraint as he ever had by not shoving Techie's head through a window when she started to drip on him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We do apologize for the delay, but we have been cleared for takeoff, and with a good tailwind we should be able to make up some of our lost time in the air. Please make sure all seatbelts are fastened, and seats and tray tables are in their full, upright and locked position. Once again we thank you for choosing—"

"Drive, Al," he snapped. She hit the gas.

"Seatbelts," the Captain repeated seriously, turning around in her seat to glare at them. "If you two go flying through the windshield, don't think I'm going to stop to pick up the pieces."

"If Al drives properly for once, we won't have to worry about it." That wasn't really fair of him—Al was at least as good a driver as he was, and had never once made him slink down to the floorboards with his eyes shut and pray.

He glared at Techie.

"What? I'll buckle up in a sec." She leaned over to search for something under her seat. "Captain, what ever happened to those old clothes we stashed in here?"

"Were we supposed to—" She broke off. "My _God_, Ops! Wasn't that shirt white when we started?"

"Really? I hadn't noticed any difference. Look away, Squishy."

"Why—" She started to lift her blood-soaked t-shirt over her head. He looked out the window, suddenly fascinated by the scenery.

"There should be something dry in the back, somewhere." The Captain giggled. "Ash looks better this way, anyway."

"Oh, sure. And how did _you_ two come out of this without a drop on you?"

"My friend, I have been to many, many flayings, and it all comes down to location, location, location," the Captain said smugly.

"Have not," Techie grumbled. Then, reluctantly, she started to laugh. Crane glanced at her. She was in a very undignified position, leaning over the back of the seat. He looked away again.

"Restrain yourself, Jonathan, or I'll do it for you," the Captain warned.

He reached for his seat belt, trying to ignore the fact that Al was chanting, "Wrong me, wrong me, wrong my brains out!"

Then she slammed on the brakes. He went flying facefirst into the back of the Captain's seat, slipped sideways, and cracked his head against Techie's. She floundered and managed to push him forward, between the two seats in front of them.

"What the hell was that?" the Captain demanded. Crane was rather inclined to agree with her. He looked up at Al, who was—

He blinked.

She was chalk-white and _sobbing_, both hands pressed against her face.

"Al?" She didn't even look at him. He sat up and glanced at Techie for help. "Oh, good God, woman." He took off his own coat and passed it to her. Blushing slightly, she put it on. He leaned forward to try again with Al, turning on the bedside manner that he had hoped they would never see from him. "Al? What happened?" (Not that he cared, he reminded himself. He just wanted to avoid getting caught in the vicinity of their latest mess, and if she wasn't able to drive, for whatever reason, he was going to have to take over.)

"I—I hit a bunny."

"A bunny?" he repeated dubiously.

"A bunny?" the Captain echoed in an anguished wail. He sat back.

"You ran over a bunny."

"We have to take it to the vet," Techie declared. He gaped at her.

"We—it's the middle of the night! And in case you've forgotten, we need to get out of here, now. We do not have the time to waste—"

"You're right."

The next thing he knew, three doors were flung open, and the girls were out of the van, clustering around the left front tire and cooing unsettlingly. He climbed into the front seat to look down at them.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Don't worry, little fella, we're not going to hurt you," Techie crooned, oblivious.

"We're going to take good care of you, yes we are," the Captain added.

"We'll take you home and love you forever and ever."

"Get back in the van!" he insisted.

"And we'll pet you and love you and call you…Miles," Al continued. "And your name will be Miles, and you will be our Miles."

"If you don't get in, I'm going to leave you."

"And don't you worry about mean old Uncle Squishy. He's going to love you, too. And he'll hug you and pet you and…"

He pulled the door shut and put the van in gear, half intending to floor it and finish what Al had started, hopefully clipping at least one of them, as well.

But he didn't have time to do more than roll forward slightly before they took the hint and piled into the backseat together, all three of them cuddling around a bundle wrapped up in Techie's bloody t-shirt.

They crooned at it all the way back to the lair.

By the time he had parked the old VW bus in the nearest parking garage and stalked back to safety, with those three trailing behind him in a little knot, he was ready to strangle them all.

Bunnies.

_Bunnies!_ Hippity-hopping around Gotham City with their floppy ears and twitchy little noses…the whole town was going to hell in a handbasket, and that cinched it. When he'd first started out, there hadn't been a bunny within a five mile radius of Gotham City. They would have been incinerated on contact.

Bunnies.

They couldn't have just hit a rat.


End file.
